stupidest thing u have done or seen a rookie do?

i was parked at a casino near tulsa, ok for the night when i got a message to drop my trailer in louisiana instead of pittsburgh. i had trouble falling asleep, then i slept a little late... basically rolled out of bed and into the driver's seat.

now there's no highway that connects tulsa to new orleans, so the directions i wrote down were basically: take the turnpike south for 8 miles, state route 29 east for 12 miles, us72 south for 27 miles, etc, etc, for the first 300 miles or so.

well, even though the turnpike runs due south where i picked it up, OK called it westbound... so i missed that turn... i was desperately seeking coffee so i pulled into the median mcdonald's; when i merged back into traffic it was rainy in morning rush hour, so i forgot that my exit was about 3/4 mile after the mcd's... so i missed that turn...

all in all i made 6 wrong turns in the first 4 hours or so. ran up an extra $30 in tolls that i was afraid to turn in for reimbursement.


another time i had to drive from charlotte to cleveland. 500 miles straight up i77, what could be easier? a couple hours into it i noticed mile markers in the 400's and was like WTF?!?! not long after that was the i81 interchange... in tennessee. thankfully i was in my personal vehicle for that one.

 

I forgot to do a tug test and when i went to pull away i noticed my trailer was not coming with me......."luckily" i forgot to raise the landing gear cause it could have been alot worse lol. If i would have went any further I would have ripped out all my lines and electrical.

 

i love the golf course honk---i didnt realize it was so popular

 

Back in 05 I was in Illinois on 55 headed towards St. Louis, I came up on a Schnider truck that had one of its drivers side wheels that was smoking really really bad. Everyone was trying to tell him on the CB that he had a problem but he didnt have a cb, we were motioning to him as we were going by that he had a problem, he just started flipping us off like we were doing something to him.

Anyhow this goes on for about 20 miles until he gets to the 18 and pulls off to go into the truck stop, only then does he realize that his trailer tire is now engulfed in flames.

So what is a driver to do? He stops the #### thing right on top of the highway bridge, sets the brakes up gets out and runs away. He didnt even bother shutting the truck off.

I pulled in around him, stopped, got out and pulled the pin on his trailer and drove the tractor out from under it, didnt even bother dollying it down.

Within 10 minutes fire had engulfed the whole thing, I guess they found the driver over in the truck stop I never did get to talk to him.

I got a big thank you from the FD for pulling the tractor out, the guy I was talking to said that if the tractor had burnt and the fuel tanks ruptured they would have had to close down I-55 That would have made a really sucky night for everyone.

 

My favorite are the snobby girls in convertables.

 

hmmm didnt go over truck fire in traing i guess
where i was working--same thing--front axle on fire on truck--so the einstien pulls into a gas station when he notices it
thank god nothing to much happened-i think they chased him out of the gas station tho

 

yeah that is all we need, a truck melting down sitting at the pump.

 

Was in Chicago had to Blindside into sunken, closed in dock. Opened my doors started backing in as I straighten up I feel a bump I stop get out and look to see the owners Mercades pinned between the dock and my trailer. He parked there when raining to stay dry. Well it cost me a job but I now NEVER back in without walking into hole to verify it empty. (Owner told me to back in but forgot his car was in the dock}

 

dumbest thing i did was drop a trailer then proceeded to talk to someone awhile then i pull away as a loud slamming noise came from the sleeper. turns out i never disconnected airlines and pigtail. everyting still worked long enough to get to terminal and replace. but i rode around for a week or so with super stretched 10' lines, which everyone who noticed had to take a few minutes out of their day to comment about. just another use of the mighty bungee strap. oh yeah dont drop loaded trailers for the rainy weekend, but thats another dumb story.

 

I had been driving for about 9 months, I was pulling a load into Big R farm and ranch supply in Billings Montana, I have attached a sattelite image of thier building.



You can see at the bottom corner of the building the strip of concrete sticking out of the building, that is thier loading dock. I pulled in with a 265" WB W900L and a 53' High cube tripe axle non slider spring ride van.

It was taking a bit of mauvering to get the trailer to line up with the dock, and to make it more fun they had stacked a bunch of pipe gates up right in the middle of the way so I was being very careful.

The hand who was working out there decided he needed to take the John Madden approach and be annoying as all hell trying to direct me and have a conversation with me as I backed in.

He kept insisting that he used to be a trucker, and got into a speech on how he could already have the trailer in that dock. He kept getting up on the step telling me "want me to do it" each time I politely turned him down.

Being safe considering everything around me that I might back into or run over was pallots of merchandise I got out of the truck a couple of times to see how much room I had, each time having to deal with the nagging idiot wanting to drive my truck.

Finally id had enough I turned around and said to him "Buddy, I dont care where you have been or what you have driven, but you arent driving my truck unless you have 75,000 dollars in your back pocket you feel like forking over right here and now then you can back it in where ever and when ever you want because it will be your truck.

He got mad and walked off, and it all of the sudden got a lot easier to back the truck into the dock.

The moral of the story is, dont let some one distract you while you are backing up.

I later talked with one of the other guys I ran with, he said that guy nagged him every time he went in there wanting to drive his truck. Turns out the guy drove for swift for a little while.